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[Inkscape] Drawing Railroad tracks

Hi, I'm working on making a more readable colour version of
Isack Stewarts map from Brandon Sanderson's Alloy Of Law. (A Mistborn Novel).|
I found it a little hard to read - couldn't tell at a glance what was rail and what was rivers.

My earlier attempt was in GIMP, but i decided to start again, in Inkscape for reasons you can prob all guess at.

Here is my map, it is in SVG World Map.svg
Rail roads are currently paths in red.
It is largely unfinished.

What i want to do is repalce them with "track symbols",
Something like what is done here.
Any tips? Perhaps itcan bedone as some kind of effect on a path?, or with defs and use elements?

Draw a + shape, and combine it into a single path. Then use it as a pattern for the "Pattern Along Path" path effect.

Thanks, this roughly seems to bedoing what I want.
but for some reason (possibly when i save) the path effectisappliedanc actually changes the path.
meaning I can't later go and change what I want railroads look like .
Or indeed even change where the rail path goes.
Any way of avoiding this?
I suspect it has to do with path-efdects not actually being part of the svg standard

Thanks, this roughly seems to bedoing what I want.
but for some reason (possibly when i save) the path effectisappliedanc actually changes the path.
meaning I can't later go and change what I want railroads look like .
Or indeed even change where the rail path goes.
Any way of avoiding this?
I suspect it has to do with path-efdects not actually being part of the svg standard

Make sure you are saving as an Inkscape SVG, not a plain one and that you don't use the "object to path" command on the path.

Also make sure you are using the Pattern Along Path Path Effect, not the Pattern Along Path Extension. Path effects are "live" while extensions are a one off modification of the data.